


We Are All Counting on You

by ThoughtfulFangirl



Category: Spider Verse, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Spider-Verse - Fandom, Spiderverse - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 06:51:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17955656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtfulFangirl/pseuds/ThoughtfulFangirl
Summary: Rewatching Spiderverse and struck with a serious thought about a humorous moment





	We Are All Counting on You

> "We all have powers of one kind or the other, and in our own way, we are all Spider-Man, and we are all counting on you.“

Mary Jane’s speech in Spiderverse concludes with this line. We know from the themes of the movie and conversations with the creators that this is the message of the movie in many ways.

Re-watching the movie now, since I had to own it the moment I found out it was digitally available for purchase, I’m struck by the exchange that follows this. It’s a humorous moment between Miles and a random bystander.

Miles says, “They’re counting on me,” and the crowd-goer beside him leans over and replies to him in a moment of humor, “Probably not you specifically. I think it’s a metaphor.”

While I think this very intentionally a humorous moment, intended to be so, and played off as such, it’s also a very clever way of inserting that message to us, the audience. We understand the message the way the crowd goer does. We are not going to don the spider suit and become spiderman.   
But I think in the way that Miles knows that the crowd goer is wrong and that he bears a specific responsibility otherwise unknown to those around him, the creators are reminding us that Miles is our POV character.

We are being talked to through Mary Jane, through Miles. That voice that pops into the back of our minds that pointlessly and strangely rudely invades to say, ‘They don’t mean you’ is just as silly to your thoughts as this man is in the movie. That voice tries to take away our power and content us with inaction, when truly, we all can make a difference.

So no to this bystander; the movie does mean you. Whoever is watching, whoever is listening, whoever is reading

> **We are all counting on you.**


End file.
